Many people buy lottery tickets each week with hopes of winning the big jackpot, but if you get a letter and a check for a lottery you never entered, be wary because it might be a scam.

One couple from Athens thought they won it big, until they dug a little deeper.

“You want to believe that it’s real,” says Amanda Brunke, “and then to find out it’s not, it’s frustrating and you get disappointed.”

Brunke is talking about a check she received in the mail for $3,275 along with a letter telling her she had actually won $120,000 in an international lottery.

“We knew for sure it was a scam,” Brunke tells NewsChannel 7.

According to a letter Amanda got, along with a check that looked authentic, she was suppose to cash it and send the money overseas to claim the rest of her winnings.

“When you send the money overseas, in the meantime your bank is trying to verify funds. They find out the money isn’t there and it’s fraud. They pull the money back out and you are out the money you sent across seas,” says Brunke.

Amanda and her husband didn’t cash the check. Instead, they contacted their bank and researched Omni Motion, the medical supply company whose name appeared on the counterfeit check.

Brunke adds, “It just made me wonder, even more, why would a medical supply company be sending me a check for a lottery?”

She contacted Omni Motion to let them know she had received a check from them. The account, routing numbers and even the signature matched, but the check didn’t come from them.

Ted Berman, the president of Omni Motion, tells NewsChannel 7 that hundreds of people have contacted their company about getting a check that appeared to be from them, including the Brunke’s.

Berman says he knows of at least three people that have fallen for the lottery scam and deposited the money into their personal accounts, sending the cash overseas.

The company thinks someone got a hold of check they had sent to the East Coast, stole all of the information and used it as part of this scam.

“It just shows how easy it is for people to get a hold of that information,” add Brunke.

Amanda is turning the check over to the authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the scam.

Check Writing Security Tips

• Don’t leave outgoing main in an unlocked box. Take it to work, drop it in a collection box, hand it to a letter carrier or take it directly to the post office.
• If you have to leave outgoing mail in your box, do it immediately before the carrier comes, and don’t raise the mailbox flag.
• Avoid leaving mail in a box on Sundays and holidays, when letter carriers don’t collect the mail.
• Install a lock on your mailbox. Place the lock on your mailbox, but cut a small slit that is large enough for mail to slide through, but not big enough for a hand to fit in.
• Use a pen with gel ink; it is hard for thieves to wash off.
• Shred old checks.
• Reconcile bank statements and compare the amounts you’ve written down in your ledger in case of inaccuracies.